Pittsburgh Catholic Newspaper - News and Features

News & Features

Facility for hearing-impaired children “has been a jewel”
archived from: 2008-02-18
by: Patricia Bartos

As DePaul School for Hearing and Speech enters its 100th anniversary year, the outlook for the school’s deaf and hard of hearing students appears brighter than ever.

Advances such as digital hearing aids and the school’s stress on early intervention have greatly aided efforts to mainstream such children at increasingly younger ages into their home school districts.

“Technology” is the answer Sister Mary Jo McAtee gives when reflecting on the biggest change in her 23 years at the school. Her order, the Seton Hill Sisters of Charity, founded and have staffed DePaul for that century.

Cochlear implants and high-tech hearing aids have worked real miracles for the children, and DePaul’s emphasis on reaching children early has also made a huge impact on their learning, she said.

“When I came, FM systems were just starting to be used in the classroom and we thought that was fantastic,” Sister Mary Jo said. But by last fall the school took another jump into the future by installing a state-of-the-art infrared sound field system, with teachers wearing transmitters that can be hooked into the classroom systems.

“This ministry has been a jewel for us,” she said of the order’s commitment to DePaul.

Sister Mary Jo became education director of DePaul three years ago, after two decades of teaching there.

“This has been my one and only ministry,” she said. “These kids get into your heart, and you can’t leave.”

DePaul works with some 90 children, all with profound hearing loss, both through home services and 65 children in the school itself. They come from many area counties, and more than 60 percent have cochlear implants and more than 20 percent have two implants.

DePaul’s staff of 54 includes certified teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing, all with master’s degrees, plus aides, audiologist Dr. Deborah Johnston, speech and language pathologists, a nurse, physical and occupational therapists.

And, while just “two and one-half” sisters remain on staff, “the Charity charism is carried on by all the faculty and staff here with us,” Sister Mary Jo said.

She is joined by Sister Mary John Moore, who has been at the school for more than 30 years, and Sister Jeremy Malch, also a longtime teacher, who works part time.

DePaul is one of just 46 schools — the only one locally — specializing in oral education, which teaches children with hearing impairments to listen and talk. In 1991, it became the first in the state to teach children with cochlear implants.

The teacher-student ratio is kept low, at four students to one teacher, allowing for closer attention to the needs of each child. “Our idea is that if they’re going to talk, they really need to talk,” Sister Mary Jo said.

DePaul works with children as young as 18 months.

“We bombard them with sound and words,” she said.

Michelle Parfitt, early intervention coordinator, oversees the new toddler program, for children ages 18 months to 3 years. All receive services in their home and now also come to DePaul several mornings a week.

“We can provide greater intensity of language and listening experiences in the school,” Parfitt said. “They’re learning how to listen, and we try to get them to use speech to interact. We use fun activities, which are also learning activities. We make them ask for snacks, to use language,” she said.

Now in its third year, the program enrolls 15 children. The staff also hosts weekly meetings and a workshop for parents once a month. “Every bit of support you can give to parents helps,” Sister Mary Jo said. “We like to have teachers go in to the ‘natural setting.’ But very young hearing-impaired children need more.

“Our goal is to mainstream them back into their home districts as soon as we can academically and socially. We look at speech and language development and like to see really good reading skills.”

While some children have mainstreamed on the kindergarten level, most change in the fourth and fifth grades.

“I expect that to get younger and younger,” she said. “A lot of people feel that with the implant the children can learn to hear and speak.”

But that is not the whole story. “They also need oral training. It’s about understanding what they’re hearing.”

Dr. Dennis Barrett, superintendent, said that, with continuing technological advances, plus medical and genetic research, “We might be out of business in 20 years.”

Still, the main cause of hearing impairments remains unknown. Some cases can be attributed to heredity, childhood diseases or the environment.

Barrett warns that often pediatricians don’t take hearing problems seriously enough.

“It’s most important that pediatricians follow up,” he said. “We’re saying take care of it ASAP. Every minute counts.”

DePaul does not charge tuition, operating with government support, grants and gifts from individuals, foundations and corporations. The school began life in 1908 as the DePaul Institute, founded by Bishop Regis Canevin. He saw the desperate need to educate deaf children and asked the Charity sisters to take on the work. They responded immediately and by that fall opened DePaul in a leased building in Pittsburgh’s Troy Hill neighborhood with 23 children enrolled.

The diocese soon purchased farmland in the city’s Brookline area, and by 1911 constructed a new school building, with dormitories for residential students at the top of Castlegate Avenue. Five years ago, the school relocated to the Shadyside neighborhood.

The school’s rich history is featured in a new 101-page centennial book, “Nothing But the Best,” published by DePaul and written by teacher Tom Hoag. The school’s Web site is www.speakmiracles.org.

“I’m very proud to be carrying on the work of the Sisters of Charity over 100 years,” Sister Mary Jo said. “DePaul has been my life and my gift.”

E-mail this story